Chapter Two- Rye. The Phone Call.
1274 Words
The phone rang once. Twice.
“Hello?” came a deep, steady voice. Confident. Calm.
It made Rye pause for a beat. The last time he’d heard that voice, it still held the edges of adolescence.
“Finn,” Rye said quietly, almost caught off guard by the maturity in his nephew’s tone. “You sound.. older.”
A short breath of amusement. “I’m twenty, Uncle Rye. Time does that.”
Rye managed a faint smile. “Yeah. I guess it does.”
Then silence stretched, faint tension creeping in.
“Is everything alright?” Finn asked carefully, the Beta-in-training suddenly present in his voice. “Are you and Birdie okay?”
“We’re alright,” Rye replied, but the lie sat awkwardly in his throat. “I.. I’m calling to speak with your mother. It’s time.”
Finn didn’t push, but his pause was telling. “Alright. I’ll get her.”
The receiver muffled briefly, and Rye heard the faint sound of footsteps and Finn’s voice calling out: “Mum, Uncle Rye.”
Then a sharper voice came on the line.
“Rye.” Nora’s tone was all steel. “You’ve left this too long.”
“I know,” he said quietly.
“She should’ve been here years ago. She should’ve grown up with her kind, with us.”
“I know,” he said again, the weight of it dragging in his voice.
Nora’s voice cut sharper. “She was never meant to live hidden away in a tiny house, half way across the world. She needs space, woods, connections. She needs her pack, not city streets and pretending she’s human. That’s not safety, that’s isolation.”
“I know that now,” Rye admitted. “I kept fighting. Kept thinking I could fix it. That I could find something to… stop it. But Bonnie’s right. If her fate wins… Birdie won’t survive unless she’s prepared.”
Nora was quiet. Not forgiving. Just waiting.
Then Rye spoke again, lower this time. The words dragged out like a confession.
“I need her to come to you Nor. So you need to know. I didn’t just take her away,” he said. “I took everything away from her too.. her memories. The witch took every last one that connected her to that life. Not just that day. Not just the pack. Not just wolves. The warmth. The times with you. With her cousins and friends from school..” Ryes voiced cracked with emotion as he took a pause, a moment to compose himself before he continued. “.. .. Her mother, too. She doesn’t remember Eira at all. Not her voice. Not her laugh… nothing. It’s like she never really existed to Birdie, she’s just a story like the rest of the fairy tales I’ve told her.”
The silence was deafening.
When Nora finally spoke, her voice shook with restrained fury and a deep sadness. “You erased her, Rye. How could you?”
“She was breaking,” Rye said, voice brittle. “Crying for her mum every night. Sitting by the window and asking when she was coming home. When she would wake up. Worried she’d be too cold in the snow, in the forest. I tried to tell her.. I just couldn’t say the words out loud. So I lied but I couldn’t keep lying to her. I couldn’t tell her the truth either. I didn’t know what else to do.”
“So you broke her differently,” Nora said bitterly. “You think that protected her? You took away the one piece of Eira she had left. Do you know how cruel that is?”
“I know,” he said softly. “I know. And I can’t undo it. But that’s not what I set out to do. Nora, I wasn’t thinking straight then.. I’d just lost my mate.”
“And what about now Rye? You still think you can save her from what she is?” she demanded. “That’s not saving her.. That’s hiding from what you lost. That’s fear. You accepted Eira, loved her, every part of her, everything she was. Birdie deserves that, too.”
“I can’t lose her the way I lost Eira,” he whispered. “I can’t watch that happen again.”
“She’s not Eira. And she’s not yours to keep frozen in time. She’s almost eighteen. She needs answers. She needs connection. She needs truth. Not bedtime stories dressed up as survival lessons. You’re not just risking her Rye, you’re risking everyone around her. When are you coming?”
“I’m not.. I can’t. I’m not abandoning her,” he said quickly. “I’m giving her a chance.”
“She needs you,” Nora said, gentler now. “You’re the only one she’s ever had. If you leave now, if you vanish again, she will feel abandoned. When she knows, she’ll think you’ve chosen the lie over her.”
“I have to go. Abroad. To keep searching. For something… anything that might still help.”
“You’ll run,” she snapped. “Just like before.”
“No,” Rye said, though even he heard the doubt in his own voice.
“Don’t lie to me. Don’t run again, Rye. Because if you do, I will find you.”
His silence answered her.
“Finn’s preparing to take over as Beta Rye. Cade is still serving until the handover. If you disappear, I’ll send both of them after you. Every warrior in the Blackthorne pack. And I’ll call the Alphas of every allied territory. I know you remember Cade’s loyalty to you, he still calls you brother, but he will come.”
Rye’s hand tightened around the phone.
“And if you use magic again,” she continued, her voice quieter but sharper than a blade, “I’ll call Bonnie. And she will track you. Don’t think for a second she won’t. She loved Eira. She’ll trace you down to your last breath if it means keeping Birdie alive.”
“I just wanted to keep her safe,” Rye whispered.
“I know,” Nora said. “But this isn’t about you anymore. Not your guilt. Not your grief. None of us should’ve let this go on this long. We’ve all let her down”
Rye nodded slowly, though she couldn’t see it. “I’ll send her. The day after her birthday. I want one more special day with her. One last moment where she still smiles at me like I’m everything.”
“You’ll follow through this time?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll get her room ready.”
“She’ll need Finn. And Lily.”
“She’ll have them. And more. The pack is ready. She won’t face this alone.”
“I won’t be staying Nora,” Rye said, hesitant. “I still have to try. I have to believe there’s something out there that can help her.”
There was a pause. And then her voice softened, raw.
“I’ve missed you, Rye. I love you. Even when I hated you for running, I never stopped loving you.”
His voice cracked. “I love you too, Nora.”
The line went quiet and he put the phone down.
Rye sat in the stillness of the London night, sirens in the distance, the faint thrum of a bus passing by. The house was dark. Still. Safe. For now.
Then, slowly, he stood.
He crossed to his laptop, opened it and pulled up a flight booking site.
The cursor blinked.
And this time, he didn’t hesitate.
- Writer
